PA PICKED Mama up, wrapping her in blankets that Alice had fetched, and brought her upstairs to their room.
"Go to your rooms and stay there," he ordered me and Martha.
Martha did but I didn't. I set to helping Alice and Polly and Janice clean up. Because it was my fault what had happened. When they wiped the blood up from the floor, I made some tea for Mama, and when the front door knocker sounded, I took off my apron and answered it and walked Dr. Kinney upstairs.
That good man stared at me. I must have been God's own mess. "Are you hurt, Cornelia?" he asked.
"No, sir, my mama is. I was just making her some tea."
He nodded and went into Mama and Pa's bedroom. "You're a good girl," he mumbled. It comforted me, his saying that. If only Pa would think so.
As I went back down the stairs, the others were coming up.
George, who was the oldest at almost eleven, born during a heavy bombardment at Cambridge at the beginning of the war and named after George Washington himself.
And Martha, who had come out of her room where Pa had sent her.
Nat came with them. He was near seven, born after me.
Louisa, the baby, toddled last. She was two.
I had the singular honor of being conceived at Valley Forge. "That camp on the west bank of the Schuylkill," Pa called it, "that had no valley and no forge. Your mother was happy there."
"Of course she was happy," Martha once told me. "Surrounded by all those army officers who danced and flirted with her."
Martha seemed to know a lot about it. Oh, there was no mystery as to the reason she knew a lot about it.
Eulinda told her things. In all honesty, Eulinda told us all a lot of things about the war, about the interesting stories in Mama and Pa's past, for as far back as she knew, anyway. How else would we know about "the dark huts and leaky roofs" the men lived in at Valley Forge? About how the men lived mostly on "fire cakes," a paste of flour and water cooked on hot rocks over an open fire.
How else would I know that when I was born, in our Coventry, Rhode Island, home, Mama was in travail for two days. And that at the time, Pa had wanted another boy but he didn't get one until Nat came along. And that somewhere in between, Mama lost another baby to whooping cough.
But always, always, Martha knew more. Because Martha badgered Eulinda to tell more.
Up ahead in the hall, Pa came out of Mama's room. My brothers and sisters were all chattering on the steps below me.
"Downstairs, all of you," Pa ordered. "The doctor is seeing to your mother. I want no noise. Where is your tutor? Where is Mr. Miller?"
"He's in the kitchen, seeing to some food for us," George said. "He wants to take us on a ride this afternoon. Can we go, Pa?"
"No. I'll speak with him. I want you all here, in case I need you. Now go downstairs." He shooed them and they went.
What did he mean, "in case I need you"? Was Mama failing? Dying? A shock of fear went through me. I cast Pa a look of appeal before I turned to go downstairs, too.
He put a restraining hand on my shoulder, then said, "Go in and see your mother."
Eulinda was in there. She glared at me as I entered. "Bad girl," she snarled, "to bring your mama to such a state."
Mama lay, eyes closed, pale and beautiful, in their large tester bed.
To the side, in a white, lace-trimmed cradle, lay the baby. From somewhere, some servant had hastily procured a pink bow and tacked it on the cradle. Another girl, but so tiny you would not believe she could manage to breathe. Yet she did.
"Mama?" I whispered.
The violet eyes looked up at me. "Cornelia," she said.
I could think of nothing to say. My mouth was dry. I needed some water. And then Pa came back in.
"What do I say?" I asked him.
"Nothing. Just hold her hand for a moment or two. Then go to your room. I'll be along when she falls asleep."
***
I HAD CHANGED my clothes by the time Pa came knocking at my door. He came in, leaving the door half open, and leaned against the doorjamb, looking at me. I sat in a chair, my bloodstained dress and apron on the floor next to me.
I had changed into a calico he'd given me last Christmas. Did he notice? Did he care? "Is Mama all right?" I asked.
"She's been brought awfully low, but she will recover. With rest."
"And the baby?"
"Seven months. Dr. Kinney says she won't make it through the night."
The calm with which he said this shocked me. I think he too was in shock.
"Is it my fault, then?" I asked.
He shook his head no. "We don't play that game in this house. I've told you that before. In the army, Washington never laid blame when a battle was lost. He gathered his officers and made plans for the next one. But I would like to know why you were running from her. That would be a help right now."
Sarcasm. With Pa, it was on the way to anger. I must be careful. "I didn't go to school this morning," I said quietly, "and Mama was after me for it. And so I was hiding from her."
"Why didn't you go to school?"
There was nothing for it but to tell. "I don't like Mr. Miller."
"You don't like Mr. Miller," he repeated flatly.
"No, sir."
"Why?"
Well, there was no telling this, now or ever. What could I say? That one day I'd left my notebook in the classroom and gone back for it and found Mr. Miller, all of twenty-five, sitting behind his desk and Mama standing in front, leaning over it, and then him, of a sudden, standing up, taking her by the shoulders, and kissing her.
"I will have an answer," Pa said. "Can you give me a good reason for this?"
Tears came down and I swallowed them back. "Please, Pa, I can't. Please, you can punish me all you want. I can't."
He scowled. Pa scowling was not a thing you wanted to see.
"Has he done something to offend you? Has he acted unseemly toward you? You know what I mean, Cornelia. We've spoken of this."
He let me cry for a minute, then took out his handkerchief and reached out his arm to me. I went to him, and he gave me the handkerchief and enfolded me in his arms.
"My pa beat me," he said with no emotion in his voice. "When I came home from sneaking away to go to dances, he'd beat me bad. Quakers don't dance, you see, Cornelia, and I loved to dance. One time I fooled him. I put some wooden shingles inside my pants."
My sobbing subsided somewhat. I looked up at him. "You are a good pa," I said.
He rested his chin on top of my head. "Mayhap I should have let the others go for a ride this afternoon with Mr. Miller," he said. "Only I wanted to take you and George and Martha and Nat on a trip soon. To see the land I purchased on the southern end of Cumberland Island. It's a long trip. We've got to take a sailing ship about a hundred miles on the Saint Marys River, then go by horseback to where my land lies."
"Oh! When can we go, Pa?"
He scowled down at me. "Not for a while now. Not until I'm sure your mother is well."
I nodded respectfully. "Is this where you're going to build the house you call Dungeness?"
"Yes."
"And you've got the plans all drawn up for it?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Miller told us you'll never live there."
"I shouldn't tell tales out of school, Pa, but yes."
He released me, but not without a mild shake. "No, you shouldn't. I don't like tales told out of school. I should be punishing you, not rewarding you by promising you a trip. But yes, I'd like to take you. Only after your mother is well again and we see how fares the baby. Do you think you could stay good until then? And go to school, despite your dislike for Mr. Miller?"
"Yes, sir," I promised.
"All right, now I'm going to see your mother. Go downstairs and make yourself useful."
***
THE BABY DIED before nightfall. And I blamed myself, though neither Mama nor Pa did. But if I hadn't blamed myself, I could always count on Martha, who reminded me before I went to my room that night.
"Well, I hope you're proud of what you did this day. It's all your fault, you know, that we lost our little sister."